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Ghost Dog (Whitaker) sees himself as a retainer of Louie (John Tormey), a local mobster, who saved Ghost Dog's life years ago. While living as a hired hitman for the Italian Mafia, he adheres to the code of the samurai, and interprets and applies the wisdom of the Hagakure in his contracts for the mob.

Louie tells Ghost Dog to kill a gangster, Handsome Frank, who is sleeping with the daughter (Tricia Vessey) of the mafia boss Vargo (Henry Silva). Ghost Dog arrives and kills the gangster, before seeing that the girl is also in the room at the time; she lends him a book; he leaves her alive, and exits. In order to avoid being implicated in the murder of a made man, Vargo and his associate Sonny Valerio decide to get rid of Ghost Dog. Louie knows practically nothing about Ghost Dog, and the hitman communicates only by homing pigeon. The mobsters start by tracing all the pigeon coops in town. They find Ghost Dog's cabin atop a building and kill his pigeons. Ghost Dog realizes he must kill the entire mafia or otherwise they will kill him and his master.

During the day, Ghost Dog frequently visits the park to see his best friend, an ice cream salesman named Raymond (Isaach De Bankolé) who speaks only French. Ghost Dog does not understand French and Raymond does not understand English, but the two seem to understand each other. Ghost Dog also makes friends with a little girl named Pearline (Camille Winbush), to whom he lends the book—Rashōmon and Other Stories—he received from Vargo's daughter. Paralleling a major theme of Rashōmon, Louie and Ghost Dog have different accounts of the circumstances of their meeting: in Louie's flashback he shoots Ghost Dog's attacker in self-defense, while in Ghost Dog's flashback, Louie shoots the attacker just as the attacker is about to kill Ghost Dog.

Eventually, Ghost Dog attacks Vargo's mansion single-handedly and kills almost everyone he encounters, sparing only Louie and Vargo's daughter. Though Louie feels some loyalty to Ghost Dog, he also feels that he must avenge the murder of boss Vargo, but it was stated that Vargo's daughter ordered him to murder Ghost Dog. At night, Ghost Dog kills Sonny Valerio in his house, shooting a bullet through Valerio´s bathroom pipe.

Louie finally confronts Ghost Dog at Raymond's ice cream stand with Raymond and Pearline watching, after he gave his copy of Hagakure to the latter. Ghost Dog is unwilling to attack his master and allows Louie to kill him. His last act is to give Louie the copy of Rashōmon and encourage him to read it.

The film was shot mostly in Jersey City, New Jersey, but the movie never mentions where the story is set. License plates reveal it is in "The Industrial State"[1] and a vehicle from another state has on its license plate "The Highway State", both of which are fictional state nicknames.

Cartoons are also used as a metaphor to scene or plot dynamics. Handsome Frank watches a cartoon featuring Betty Boop corralling her pigeons moments before Ghost Dog, a fellow pigeon raiser, arrives to assassinate him. Ghost Dog is later seen handling his pigeons in the same manner as Betty. Boss Vargo watches a Felix the Cat cartoon wherein the Professor voices his frustration at capturing the elusive Felix and his magic bag, mirroring the mafia's inability to find and eliminate Ghost Dog, who carries his weapons and equipment in a black briefcase. Vargo and his daughter, Louise, watch a Woody Woodpeckercartoon in the car, immediately after Ghost Dog has been distracted by a woodpecker while sniping in the woods. The cartoon features a staring contest between Woody and the Grim Reaper. Vargo's daughter watches an episode of The Itchy & Scratchy Show (in which Itchy and Scratchy threaten each other with increasingly bigger guns, before blowing up the earth) before the equally violent battle which concludes the film.

Critical response to the film was largely positive. On the Rotten Tomatoes review site, the film received an 82% "Certified Fresh" rating. The critical consensus was that the movie is "An innovative blend of samurai and gangster lifestyles."[2] The film was nominated for a few awards but did not win any of them. Among the nominations were the Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics, the César Award for Best Foreign Film of 2000[3] and the Palme d'Or award at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.[4] The film grossed a worldwide total of $9,380,473, of which $3,308,029 was in the United States.[5]

Gary Farmer is credited as playing a character named "Nobody", the same name as his character in Jarmusch's 1995westernDead Man. After he is confronted by some mob hitmen on his roof, Nobody repeats one of his lines from Dead Man: "stupid fucking white man!" Forest Whitaker's younger brother Damon Whitaker plays the role of the young Ghost Dog in the flashback sequences.

US and Japanese versions of the soundtrack album have been released, each with a different set of tracks. The Japanese release also has some songs not in the film.[6] Songs in the film that don't appear on either soundtrack album include From Then Till Now performed by Killah Priest, Armagideon Time performed by Willi Williams, Nuba One performed by Andrew Cyrille and Jimmy Lyons and Cold Lampin With Flavor performed by Public Enemy.[7]

The film has been interpreted by critics as an homage to Le Samouraï, a 1967 crime-drama by Jean-Pierre Melville starring Alain Delon. That movie opens with a quote from an invented Book of Bushido and features a meditative, loner hero, Jef Costello. In the same manner that Ghost Dog has an electronic "key" to break into luxury cars, Costello has a huge ring of keys that enable him to steal any Citroën DS.[8][9] The endings share a key similarity. Moreover, the peculiar relationship between the heroes of both movies and birds, as companions and danger advisers, is another common theme.

The film contains a number of references to Seijun Suzuki's Branded to Kill, such as when a bird lands in front of Ghost Dog's rifle scope, referencing the incident with a butterfly in Suzuki's film.[10] Ghost Dog shooting Sonny Valerio up the drain pipe is taken directly from Branded to Kill.